


the waltz

by crescentmoonthemage



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Poe Dameron Hurts So Prettily, Poe Dameron Needs A Hug, drunk and dancing on the roof, they're both idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21969343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescentmoonthemage/pseuds/crescentmoonthemage
Summary: Their bare feet swick on the cold roof, their fingers are laced tightly, they spin, gently, moving like the night.Together, they sway.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 13
Kudos: 249





	the waltz

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Christmas everyone! I've been working on this since the movie, but only now felt it was good enough to post. Enjoy!
> 
> Bonus points if you can find both non Star Wars books I reference and list the lines! I'll comment and tell you if you got them right :)

The stars are just beginning to wink through the jungle sky when Poe Dameron kicks his shoes off, takes another sip of his drink, and settles onto the roof. Some of the scouts leave chairs up here on shift, and he drops into one, putting his feet up onto the other. He doesn’t really smoke, but lights a cigarra anyway, watching the lazy curl of smoke rise into the sky.

The gathering dark has been pushed back by the merry lights of the party below, the night-birds drowned out by the cacophony of laughter, music, and relief. They are alive. They _made_ it, somehow, some way. Finn is alive, Rey is alive, Rose and Zorri and Chewbacca are alive. Despite everything, Poe is alive. He remains, still. Tomorrow, people will count on him to make decisions and sound important, but for tonight he can be drunk on a roof, reveling in the silence both within and without.

He sloshes the drink in his hand and is vaguely displeased to find it nearly empty. He’s not yet drunk enough to be belligerent, but he’s far past the stage where he’s just an innocent flirt, so he had taken it upon himself to retreat to the roof before he did something stupid-- like picking another fight with Finn, with Rey. Like trying to get into Zorri’s bed again, even though it’s what neither of them want, or running away with her like she’d asked. Like demanding Finn tell him what he hadn’t said on Pasaana.

Like wanting love when there wasn’t any for him, not like that, not in the way he had searched for all his life. Of course, he was loved. Of course, he had friends and admirers and companions and he had fucked his way across a few systems in his day and _really,_ he had no right to be speaking like this, not when he had _so much._ But he missed Leia. His mother’s wedding ring hung heavy around his neck. And still, despite everything, he wanted _so much--_ things he wasn’t even allowed to ask for— _shouldn’t_ ask for. Trigger-happy flyboy, Holdo had said, so long ago now. How right she had been.

He was plenty drunk enough to be self-deprecating, it seemed.

Someone knocks on the roof door behind him and before Poe can turn to see who it is, Finn is unceremoniously shoving his feet off the other chair, scooting it next to his own, and sitting down beside him. Poe knocks his glass against Finn’s and takes another drink so he can avoid saying the words bubbling up in his throat. Finn grins at him as he raises his own in a mocking salute to the sky, to Poe, to everyone. “We won,” he says, sounding wondrous at it. Poe is drunk on the night, and victory, and Finn’s voice.

“I can’t believe it,” he says, and it’s the truth. He stretches his neck up to look at the stars blinking into existence above him, or the sharp dark outlines of jungle trees, anything to avoid looking at Finn.

“What now?” Finn is staring at him, brown eyes honest and open and full of the twinkling party-lights.

Poe laughs bitterly, still avoiding his eyes. “I am too drunk to be having _that_ conversation. You can talk to me about it tomorrow, as long as you bring me breakfast and some pain pills, _General.”_ At the title, Finn giggles beside him, and takes another sip of his own drink. Beneath them, the faint swell of the music has shifted into something slower. Poe still has no idea where they’ve scrounged a band up from, but somehow there is one, and people are merry because of it.

Beside him, Finn is warm against the chill of the deepening night, and he presses their shoulders together. It is only then that Poe realizes how exhausted he is, how long it’s been since he’s slept, how little impulse control he has. He sinks his head onto Finn’s shoulder before he can think better of it, the solidness of it grounding him. “So let’s not talk about the future,” says Finn. “Let’s talk about everything _but_ the future. About the party downstairs, and Rey’s smile, and Rose laughing. We can talk about you lightspeed-skipping, and Rey facing down that huge snake-thing.”

When Poe says nothing, Finn continues, as if he’s scrounging for words: “So let’s sit, and be quiet, and appreciate the calm of the world.”

At that, Poe laughs, shuts his eyes. “What about the roiling sea inside? It feels like that Endor moon in here.” He taps his chest with a closed fist. _Can we talk about how I’m in love with my best friend who doesn’t want me back?_ His head spins. Finn puts a comforting arm around him, pulling him close, and _god,_ how Poe loves and hates that warmth. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Ask me about it sometime when I won’t do something stupid,” says Poe.

In one fluid motion, Finn stands, offering a hand. “So teach me to dance,” he says. “ _General_.” When Poe blusters, Finn grins only wider—this, it seemed, was the reaction he had been looking for. Poe is both relieved and annoyed at being known so well, that only this action was needed to bring him out of the dark and back into safer, brighter territory. “Why?”

Finn’s face is backlit in the dark. “Now that war’s over, I figure there’ll be more time for it. Besides, we never learned frivolities as Troopers.”

He’s so _earnest,_ and Poe can’t refuse him anything, so despite his exhaustion and the spinning of his head, he takes his hand, stands, looks him in the eye. “Fine,” he says. “But just because a man who doesn’t know how to dance is living a sad, sad life. How will you impress all the ladies if you step on their feet?” He’s meant to say it lightly, and is proud of himself when it comes out as casual as he had meant it.

Finn raises an eyebrow. “I could say the same for you. What was her name? Zorri? Is she pretty?”

“I don’t know, is she?” Poe is skirting a line, but he’s too drunk to care. “Other hand, please.”

When Finn offers his other hand, Poe takes it, guiding it to his shoulder and placing his own on Finn’s waist. He ignores the rush of heat within him, blinks rapidly to avoid meeting Finn’s gaze. “Put your foot out—there, no _there._ God, Finn, _there_.”

Finn laughs at him, at the absurdity of it all, his face open and inviting and Poe almost leaves _right there_ but he forces himself to stay. Slowly, so slowly, he leads Finn through the steps of the dance, and slowly, so slowly, they sway, rotating unsteadily around the roof. Everything is spinning, and the lights are fuzzy around the edges. The music is slow and soft beneath them. The world is Finn’s eyes. “It’s unfair how fast you pick things up,” says Poe, struggling to find something to say, _anything,_ and Finn smiles at him again, pushing all other thoughts from his brain. They are very close, close enough that when Finn sighs, eyes shuttering halfway closed, his breath mingles with Poe’s.

They dance for minutes or hours or seconds. Time doesn’t exist, only the quiet music, only the warmth of Finn’s hand in his, only the fact that they are here, and alive.

Just because he is drunk, and just because the war is over, Poe allows himself to think _I want I want I want_ as Finn slots his head into the space between his shoulder and his neck. _I want I want I want,_ as Poe rests his head on the top of Finn’s, hair tickling his chin. How perfectly they fit. Their bare feet _swick_ on the cold roof, their fingers are laced tightly, they spin, gently, moving like the night.

Together, they sway.

“You never answered my question,” says Finn, after a while. They are so close that Poe can feel the buzz of his voice inside his chest. “Is she beautiful?”

Just like that, the soft fuzz of the moment begins to evaporate. He can feel reality beginning to press again around the edges of his vision. Poe sighs out of his nose, desperately glad Finn can’t see his face. _Of course we’re having this conversation now_. “Why do you want to know?”

Finn is silent for a long, long, moment, before he says, “I heard you two. On the roof. She wanted you to run away with her.”

Poe laughs. “She never really knew me. She probably still doesn’t really know me. I wasn’t really a spice runner, you know that? It was all a cover for a job I was doing for the Resistance, back years ago. I never told her. But we were lonely, and that was enough.”

“Now that the war’s over, and she’s here, are you going to go?” asks Finn.

“Do you want me to go?”

“I want you to be happy, whatever that means.”

Time restarts, and the music jumbles to a stop inside Poe’s head. In an instant, he rips his hands from Finn’s, nearly tripping over his own feet in the haste to get to the other side of the roof. Despite everything, he has to turn away so Finn doesn’t see the solitary tears gleaming in his eyes.

He’s so _tired._

Finally, finally, he turns back to Finn. “You want me to be _happy_ ,” he says, after a long moment. “When you’re in love with Rey and she’s in love with you and neither of you would just be man enough and tell me?”

A flash of anger crosses Finn’s face. “Is this about Pasaana, again? Why can’t you let that go?”

“Never mind,” says Poe. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Obviously it matters to you,” says Finn. His voice rises, and he fights to keep it down. “Why? And even if we were in love, why would _that_ matter? Why do you care _so much_ about other people’s secrets?”

“Why do you care so much if I want to run away with Zorri, huh? Why do _you_ care so much?” Poe sits down heavily on the edge of the roof, legs dangling off. “All those moments, waking up on the Falcon and seeing you, bleary-eyed and smiling at me. All the times we laughed together, or shot together, or ran away from certain death together. All these moments of happiness, crowding through. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow! I wish I did, but I don’t. I don’t have the Force like Rey, or you! Maybe I will go with her, maybe I _will_ , just to throw a match on all of this.”

Something is ending, and they both know it. His heart is agony.

“I wish I could kiss you, Finn,” he says, finally, _hating_ the way his voice sounds when he says it. “Because I would want just one, _just one_ , and we’d never talk about it again. You want to know what would make me happy? That would. That would, Finn.”

When he turns around to see Finn’s response, he’s alone.

* * *

Evening light creeps in through the window, and he wrenches his eyes open to see that he’s in bed. Confused, he sits up, covers pooling around his waist. Inside his head is a host of firing X-Wings, and he groans, pressing a hand to his forehead.

And, because it’s just his day, Finn is sitting _right there_ beside his bed. Poe only has a second to stare at him tiredly before Finn is thrusting a tray at him. “You told me last night that we could talk about the future as long as I brought you pain pills and breakfast, right? Well, this is dinner, but it’s the best I can do.”

Poe drags a hand down his face, squeezes his eyes shut. “I didn’t mean _now,_ Finn,” he says. “It was more of a figurative _tomorrow_. I can’t even get a coherent thought out.”

“I didn’t mean everyone’s future… like the galaxy’s future,” says Finn, pressing on gamely. “I meant our future. You and me.”

Poe opens one eye to look at the tray, not looking at Finn. “So this is the moment where you tell me that you’re in love with Rey, right?”

“No, this is the moment where I tell you I’m sorry.”

Poe blinks at him in surprise, and starts to open his mouth to speak, but Finn continues. “And to tell you not to leave. Please don’t. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Poe laughs bitterly, examining the food on the tray. He picks up a mug of caf. “What, without someone to talk to the diplomats and fly the ships?”

“No, I mean without _you._ Without your stupid humor and your smiles and the way you look when you don’t think anybody’s watching. You gave me my name, Poe. You gave me my home and my family before anybody else did. I don’t know what I’d do if you were gone.”

“But you love her,” says Poe. It’s not a question. “And I love you.” Just like that, the confession is out. The thing he’s been trying not to say for almost two years, flung out by his sleep-addled, hungover brain. He squeezes his eyes shut in horror, not wanting to face the reality of what he’s just done. “Please just go, Finn,” he says, quietly, after a moment. “Find me tomorrow.” 

Finn is silent. “You know,” he says, “they didn’t teach us much about being a human in the First Order. But love isn’t something you have to teach. And _god,_ Poe…”

His voice is so miserable that Poe finally opens his eyes, startling in the look of Finn, silent tears tracing down his cheeks. “You almost died on me _so many times_. So many times. And because this is war, and because we need you, you just kept throwing yourself back out there. Just one more battle. Just one more day. I almost lost you more times than I could count, and every day when I could wake up on the Falcon and see you, sleeping there on the other bunk—those were days I counted every blessing I had. All I wanted to do was tell you to _stop_ , but I saw the look on your face when you lost someone else, and I just couldn’t. Because taking you out of that war would have been the most selfish thing in the galaxy.

“But you know what? We _won._ We’re free, now. I’m free of them, finally. You can sleep now, and we can wake up late and drink caf and you can teach me to dance and show me what chocolate is. I don’t know how to be human, not really, but I do know how to love you, and I do know that if I want anybody by my side in my first days of true freedom, I want it to be you.”

Poe blinks away tears, and, despite himself, stretches a hand to Finn’s cheek. His head throbs, but Finn smiles tremulously at him, looking so young, so happy, that Poe ignores everything but that smile for another instant.

“Come on, then,” says Poe, making a decision in a snap second (the only way he ever does). He stands from the bed in a rush of unsteady motion, brushing the tray to the side. “I never finished teaching you that dance last night.” 

Finn is gaping up at him, smiling open and free, and offers Poe his hands. The room is tight, and they are tripping over their feet, but they begin to move. There is no music but the sounds of their breath mingling.

“Since the Finalizer,” says Poe. “When you took off your helmet. That’s how long I knew,” Poe whispers.

Finn puts Poe’s hand to the side of his jaw, and Poe stops breathing. “A feeling,” he says. His voice is breathy and low and unsteady, tripping Poe’s heart.

When their mouths meet, it is nothing and everything like Poe had imagined. Poe, the trigger-happy flyboy, never happier than within the cockpit of a ship, had imagined it to be like fireworks going off inside his chest, bright and loud and fast and exciting. Instead, it is slow, and calm, and fuzzy around the edges. Inside, he is as quiet as the night. _I want, I want, I want,_ he thinks, as Finn smiles against his chin. “For once, we have all the time in the world,” he whispers.

Together, they sway.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like Stormpilot, please check out my other two Stormpilot fics written after TLJ!


End file.
